


the Quality of Dividing

by flavouredice



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Other, Slice of Life, Vignettes, evolving relationship(s), implied queer characters, likely not to be finished, no real plot, series of drabbles, various facets of queer identities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 03:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3714031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flavouredice/pseuds/flavouredice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter's life has come to revolve around trying to understand the strangers in his life. He does so with about as much grace as you could expect from a part-time college kid, part-time vigilante.</p><p>A series of vignettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly a series of drabbles that I never got around to posting. Was originally supposed to be a long, semi-coherent one-shot, but that ran away from me. Enjoy!

He has a scar on his right eyelid. It's fairly innocuous from far away, but still annoying when Peter's not even looking for it in the mirror. It follows his upper eyelid crease and fans out, in all its faded pink glory. There are days it bothers him, days it doesn't, but he likes to see it still there. His accelerated healing factor takes care of most problems he has, and he hasn't gotten a scar since he was bitten. It's not like Peter doesn't like being Spider-man, but sometimes it's nice to remember there was a Peter Parker before Spidey.

  
He should be heading out the door, getting his hair cut, a professional shave, the works—it is the day of graduation, after all. But for now he's got his nose practically smushed into the bathroom mirror. The glass fogged up almost immediately after he got close, and the tip of his nose feels cool. He can't see his face anymore, except for the imprint of his skin left on the mirror.

  
Peter doesn't actually get a chance to put any concealer on, on the bags under his eyes or on the scar, because he hears the TV down stairs and all the reporters are repeating is, “Breaking News, Breaking News, Breaking News”. He does stick around to hear that there's been a robbery at Oscorp in downtown Manhattan on the upper west side and then he's off, backpack slung on one shoulder and his graduation gown swapped for his blue and red spandex suit.

  
The good news is at least his school is in midtown Manhattan.

***

He is not in midtown Manhattan. Close enough, sure, if the cop car keeps going uptown on 8th, but he's still going to be late, Actually, he's sure that he’s already missing Gwen's valedictorian speech, so it's just a question as to how late he'll be. When his phone rings, and he’s still stuck to the police car, he contemplates throwing it at the nearest trash can.

  
But he doesn’t have nearly good enough aim to pull that off, and the cop car’s going 75, maybe 80, swerving onto 31st and just barely missing the midday crowds of people walking out of the subway. He sees streaks of yellow in the periphery of his vision as he struggles to pull his phone out from the depths of his suit, the screen foggy with his sweat. Gwen’s name is flashing on the screen, the red blinker in the corner accusatory as it tells him that he has five missed calls.

  
“Peter.” Even over the rushing of the wind, he can hear her exasperation loud and clear.


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, so maybe Peter consumes a lot of media. He admits it, he's slightly more addicted than your average college student. But no more addicted than, say, the kid that's up all night playing games and shit, or the kid that's systematically going through all the cat videos on YouTube. He's loathe to admit it, but he's the kind of guy that starts semi-official superhero twitters and Instagrams pics of the caramel sauce drizzled over the cream on his venti caramel macchiato, extra shot, extra hot, and extra whip. Yes, he sounds like an asshole ordering it, but he's perfected it to an art. The first time he tried to get it, Gwen had been laughing off to the side, watching him stumble like the good girlfriend she is.

  
The barista, bless her heart, had taken Peter's fumbling all in stride. That's actually how the drink had changed from a simple latte into a caramel latte, then no, no, I meant macchiato, you know, not cold, but, like, hot, and then, oh, yeah, of course I'd like whip, just gimme a lot of whip, um, yeah? In the end Peter has two coffees, a red face, and refuses to give Gwen either one because she had been absolutely no help at all. He doesn't even like the taste and just sort of lets the barista make it because every time she sees him now she remembers Peter as the kid with that drink.

  
It's as he's cross-posting the latte pic, after he's put it through several different filters, of course, that his RSS feed updates. He's not sure what all the activity is about but The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Tumblr, and any social media website that also acts as a hub for dispersing information in the blink of eye, are all posting this one grainy, camera-phone video. Some are from different angles, and some have thumb nail pics as elucidating as WebMD's symptom checker. All he can see, before he clicks play, is a shiny black car. Peter's not sure what make it is, because it's probably more expensive than what he's worth, easy.  
The footage is shaky and there seems to be a never-ending sea of reporters and microphones, flashing phones and garbled questions. The only thing that is clear, is the person dressed in a sharp vest and designer glasses. Well, Peter doesn't actually know if they're designer, he just kind of assumes when he hears the name that the reporters can't seem to stop saying.

  
Peter hasn't actually officially thought of Harry Osborn in a long time. He hasn't actually thought of the framed photo of the two of them by the East River in a long time either. Mainly because he had cracked the glass in a fit of childish impertinence, and then he had cut himself along the jagged edge. The glass had almost nearly split in two, and the original fix had been to tape the glass back together. After a while he had thrown the frame out and kept the photo, but that too, he hasn't thought about in a long time. He thinks it's probably somewhere in his closest, buried underneath all the junk he still has, along with his dad's briefcase.

  
What he does remember in that cafe is almost as fuzzy as the camera footage. Peter thinks of snippets of events, like running down the flights of stairs at the Oscorp tower, the Oreo milkshakes Aunt May would make the two of them, and skipping rocks in the river. Harry's dad always used to complain about how late they'd been hanging around the East River, but it's semi close to Queens and the Hudson isn't even an option, all the way on the west side.

  
What ensues after watching the video several more times and pausing it as Harry comes into focus, is basically the flood gates rushing open. He has Google up before he even realizes what he’s doing, and apparently Harry's been in the news a lot more than Peter thought. There's spread upon spread of fashion mags with Prada and GQ, with leather jackets and silk ties and expensive suits. All of the interviews seem to ask Harry, one way or another, if he's ready to fill his father's shoes and become CEO of Oscorp.

  
There is one interview that has a video attached, Harry still in the leather and cotton button-up and navy skin jeans. The interviewer isn't even on screen, somewhere behind the camera as the shutter clicks.  
“Tell all our V Man magazine fans, Harry,” says the interviewer. Peter can hear the rasp on the man's voice, can practically see the cigarette hanging from his lips as he's talking to Harry. “You ready to man-up and be CEO?” Harry had still been posing while the interviewer was talking, but now his face has gone from fashionably detached to pinched. Harry's left eyebrow twitches and he frowns, but he otherwise doesn't say anything.

  
“I don't have to,” Harry says, and his eyes shine bright blue in the light, “man-up. To be CEO.” His face smooths back into that placid smile, his eyes hooded and his body languid on the set floor. The camera pans over Harry before coming back to his face. Peter can hear the interviewer exhale from behind the screen. It's soft, but he can still hear the exasperation in the man's voice.

  
“So tell us,” the interviewer continues. It seems like he wants a particular sort of answer from Harry. “What it means to be a man. What makes a man, Harry Osborn?” Throughout the interview Peter's thought that Harry has been relatively subdued, but now Harry moves, fast and precise. His forearm is propped on the floor and his other hand splayed on the white sheet beneath him. Harry's body is tense, coiled-tight and ready to spring from the set. His gaze is cast-off to the side though, a lack of eye contact with the camera that is largely unusual, considering how focused it had been early during the shoot. An intimidating gesture that may be an answer to the question, maybe not. Peter would have taken a picture right then, but he doesn't hear the shutter of the camera.

  
“You can get your macho pandering from any other simpering male model,” and now Harry's eyes have cut to the camera. He looks the picture of disinterest: not a hair out of place and his mouth neither turned up nor down. It's not a look Peter himself is familiar with. “Lets not waste my time, Mr. Scott. You're not paying me nearly enough.”

  
Peter's phone vibrates by his coffee cup and it tips over. He catches it before it falls, but the cup feels light in his hands. When he looks inside there's nothing left except for a rim of bitter brown coffee grinds.


	3. Chapter 3

Oscorp mansion is significantly less intimidating when he's jumping from its roof than it is right now, while he's standing in front of the gold-rimmed doors. 50Th and Madison is not exactly an area of Manhattan that Peter Parker can say he spends any decent amount of time in without lying about it, and the people in suits and ties, taking their smoke breaks outside the corporate offices, eye him like the broke-ass college kid that he is.

Sure, he's wearing a blue pea coat and he tried to style his hair in a way that doesn't scream I woke up late and did this in the dark like usual. He gets enough ribbing as it is from Gwen about his sorry state of dress more than enough, and he wasn't going to walk into this building without at least pretending that he could belong there. His skin itches just from standing outside the building, but Peter's sure he doesn't look too out of place. He does, however, earn a serious eyebrow from the guard out front. She's not the same woman that used to work there when Peter was in middle school.

“Mr. Oscorp is in a meeting right now, sir,” she says when Peter asks her if he could speak to Harry for five minutes, tops, please. She looks about as confused as Peter had been in front of his mirror, slipping into the jacket.

“Could you, uh, could you tell him that Peter Parker's here?” He asks, and she obligingly picks up the phone from the case on the wall. Before she punches in any numbers she gives Peter one last, long look. She nods to herself before turning her back to him, ringing somebody higher up. Peter hasn't even gotten past the first gate in Flappy Bird when the guard beckons him over. He looks up, hears the bird die onscreen, and is largely occupied with how the door looks swinging wide open.

“Have a good day, Mr. Parker,” she says, and Peter pockets his phone, the zero still flashing on its screen.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Peter's fingertips are burned beyond recognition. He hadn't exactly been following lab safety guidelines last night, and a few more burns don't actually mean much.  Especially not since his entire body feels like an entire burn. By midday the burns'll all be gone anyway. He can still feel the shakes and the phantom pains from last night though.

Unfortunately for Peter though, the soft gray early morning light causes him searing, physical pain right in the back of his eyes. His only reprieve is if he positions his face in such a way that his eyes are hidden in the shade of the frame running down the middle of the window pane. It literally does nothing to make him feel better, but, at the moment, he'll take pretending. The wood isn't even on the window right, and it's at some oddly skewed angle. The paint is chipping off and Peter helps it along, keeping one hand on the left pane and his elbow propped on the right. The glass feels cool under his skin. It's a welcome sensation, after last night.

His reflection in the window is all mussed hair and agitated skin. The leftover gel in his hair has created untouchable, crusty peaks, and his eyes eyes are watery and red-rimmed. His hand runs over the scar on his right eyelid as he's rubbing his eyes, but he can barely feel it with his burned fingers. Truly the epitome of the college kid allure. The deep purple bags under his eyes don't even look that bad when he squints. If he lifts his head up towards the light, he can even fool himself into thinking that they’re not there. He doesn’t do much besides try to get past the feeling in his limbs and how there’s a delay between wanting to move and the twitching in his fingers before he’s fading out again.

It hurts more to wake up the second time, and the next thing he knows is that he has a face full of metal. It takes him a moment to reconcile the now bright sky with the gray one he swears he had been just looking at, before he hears the ringing. His phone must be why he woke up, because he still feels like shit. His spidey senses must have gone on vacation this morning. Good thing to know, but he wished he'd have learned this particular lesson another way and on another day. He can feel the bump forming on the bridge of his nose already, and his phone is still ringing. Just how he likes to start of his days. Bruised, contorted into a tiny hidey hole in the attic, and half-awake at ass o'clock in the morning. He can taste the success already, and it reeks of morning breath.

Lack of coordination be damned, he does actually manage to get his phone the next time he shoots a string of web. He answers before checking caller ID, if only because he likes to live on the edge. Surely only people Peter doesn't want to know would be voluntarily calling him this early in the morning. Or at least mildly interesting telemarketers.

“Peter, it's me.” Okay, so not a telemarketer.  

“D'ya know what time it is?” The words are sticky in his mouth as he tries to speak, and his tongue is  sandpaper on his throat. If Harry even understood what Peter just said, it'd be a damn miracle.

“Late? Early?” Peter is half paying attention to Harry, and half focusing on peeling more paint from the wooden frame separating the two panes of glass. For his efforts he's rewarded with a small splinter digging into his thumb. Harry sighs on the other side of the call, and Peter can imagine how he's running a hand through his hair. He can remember Harry playing with his hair whenever Peter had shown up to the Osborn mansion unannounced, or when Peter had been trying to get Harry to stay over late. If he listens hard enough, Peter thinks can hear the clink of glass. “I don't know. I've been up all night.”

There's a brief pause where the only noise over the call is their breathing. Quiet and unassuming. Just Peter and Harry, late at night, early in the morning, breathing over a phone call instead of talking. Peter doesn't know what to fill the empty space with, maybe a joke, maybe a dismissal. After all the bad press Peter's seen of Harry online, it's easy to imagine the tabloids if they knew Harry Osborn liked to call practical strangers early in the morning, and then say nothing except for breathe across the connection.

The headlines Peter's writing in his head, for the Daily Bugle, for the NY Times, for the unofficial news blogs, are all sort of rom-com and clandestine. Or, at the very least, wildly inappropriate for this conversation. If Peter wasn't feeling like he had been fried just the night before, his brain-to-mouth filter might have been a thing of the past. The part of Peter's mind that cracks jokes in the face of dangers is a very real problem of his.

“What's wrong?” Peter asks, supposing that it's a safe vein of conversation. He expects that Harry will say something non-committal, will end the call by saying he's fine and that's it. Peter thinks it's something adult and pleasant to ask, if not necessarily useless in the grand scheme of things. Small talk for the sake of small talk. You always ask someone how they're doing, and they'll always tell you everything’s just peachy.

What Peter does not expect is Harry to answer him with more than a monosyllabic reply. “I need you help.” Harry says, in the same disaffected tone he had used during all the interviews Peter had watched. It's surreal, to hear a tone of voice that Peter had only ever heard in interviews before. “Please, Pete.”  

Harry's using Peter's old childhood nickname, in a voice of stifling boarding school refinery. There's a stranger on the other end of the phone.  


	5. Chapter 5

Peter can feel the glass beneath his coat. The window is cool, and the frame that separates two panes digs into his side. But It's the hands gripping his shoulders that hold the majority of his attention. From this close he can see teeth marks in Harry's lower lip, can see bruised purple marring the skin underneath Harry's eyes. Harry's always been pale but Peter's never been able to see the spattering of thin blue veins running along Harry's throat with this much clarity before. It's almost like his skin has gone a translucent white.

He could just tell Harry to take his blood now. Damn it all, he could draw a phial and say that Spider-man gave it to him, but that wouldn't work. If he gives the blood to Harry, Harry will know, whether Peter tells him or not. And after eight years, even when he feels the routine slotting back into place, even as he feels the familiar give-and-take of talking to Harry, he's not sure if it's the man in front of him that he's reacting to, or some misplaced memory.

He's not sure whose side he's supposed to be on right now. Peter, Harry's middle school best friend, or Spidey, vigilante extraordinaire fighting to give people a sliver of hope. And what an odd question, to be asking himself if he should be loyal to Spidey?

Maybe giving hope would coincide with forking over a test tube of blood, but Peter's just not sure. It's been so long since he's had someone else on his side, but if he fucks this up, if Spider-man fucks this up, Harry'll be lost before Peter even had him. Gwen, no, he can't keep getting her involved anymore. He doesn't trust himself around her anymore. Maybe he never did.

She'd be the better choice in this situation. She's the valedictorian, not Peter. He's second best, he'll never be his father, he'll never be able to fix what he's already screwed up. He didn't give Dr. Connor's his own work, he gave his dad's work. And if that wasn't a royal mess, he doesn't know what is. Spider-man's choice seems clean-cut, incontrovertible, unassuming in its simplicity. For once in his damn life, he needs to say "no" to Harry. To Harry motherfucking Osborn, the man whose hands feel small against his arms, the man whose body seems to be shrinking each time Peter sees him.

Peter doesn't do no though. That's not… that's not how he works. He flirts around the idea, humors the notion but it lingers like a bad aftertaste. He is both simultaneously unable to let go, and afraid to keep holding on.

Gwen; beautiful, smart, fiery Gwen. She would know what to do. But him? Peter? Peter's not even sure who he is himself right now. Peter is both his father's son, and nothing like the man at all. He's left grasping at the phantom wake of his father's presence, always reaching for something that's no longer there and something he's not. Peter is both your average, second best high school graduate, and the extraordinary Spider-man; he is both faint of heart and yet lives on the adrenaline rush of jumping of off the Empire State building.

The glass is still cool beneath his back, and Harry has yet to say anything. Those pink lips are dull and worn out, and they haven't moved. The frame is still digging into his back as well, and he knows that if they stay like this any longer, the wood will leave a mark, even through his coat. Harry's not going to be the one to speak first then; he's waiting for Peter. Waiting for Peter to initiate something. And Peter's still caught on the idea of what he's supposed to do. What is Peter Parker and Spider-man are supposed to do seem like to opposing sides of an argument, but all he feels like is that he's torn between two wholes. Torn between two sides of the same coin.

Even if Peter's not sure, Harry's eyes are still focused dead on his, unrelenting. Peter can still feel the shake in Harry's arms though, and his eyes are bright and watery. Both of them are waiting for someone to say something. The space between them, barely a finger or two of air between their bodies, feels like an irreparable distance. The window frame digging into his back seems like an unimportant detail, when compared to how Harry's eyelashes look clumped together, as if he had been rubbing them all night. There are some spots where they seems sparse, and Harry’s eyebrows are look red, shiny and plucked thin. He hadn't noticed that before, but now he does, when he's trying to find the words to say.

"Alright, ok, yes," Peter says, tensing as Harry's hands seem to fall off Peter's shoulders. In the next moment it's like the string holding Harry is cut, because his weight sags in Peter's chest, his hair tickling Peter's jaw as he slots his head into the space vacated by his hands. Peter can feel each shaky breath through his body, but doesn't move away.

Peter is not particularly expecting an answer, just feels the cold of the glass on his back as he uses it to support both of them. His jacket is tight and hot, and his hands feel stiff at his sides in a semi-aborted motion to bring them around Harry. Peter's not sure what he's agreed to, but he's got to make Harry understand that he meant that he'll talk to Spider-man; that it's not a guarantee, and it's sure as hell not a solution.

"Pete, I," Harry starts and then stops, his voice a whisper below Peter's left ear.

"I, uh, I can't say for sure," and now Peter is the one rambling on, stumbling over his own tongue, "but I'll try to talk to Spidey, y'know." God, but he doesn't know. Not now, not ever, maybe he never will. Where do Peter's interests start and Spider-man's end? Surely Spider-man, the two cannot be one and the same, no. No, no, no, his and a supposed stranger's paths should be opposing trajectories on curves that will never intersect.

And maybe he's said something wrong because he can feel Harry tense before he leans in one moment, for a short, terrifyingly long moment, before Harry's back out of Peter's immediate space. Those bright eyes are trained on Peter, dry as the scotch glass on the table.


	6. Chapter 6

“All I have left is a briefcase at the bottom of my closet,” Peter says, while flicking his wrist. He sends a rock skittering across the surface of the river, with perfect precision, but less than perfect focus. The rock could sink on the first hop, for all he cares.

Harry hums, and the noise is neither here nor there, and he too, bends down to pick up another rock. It is white flecked with black, worn smooth to the touch. “I wonder,” Harry says as he tosses his own rock, “if that's how they would have chosen to be remembered by.” The rock skips twice before it sinks unceremoniously with a plop.

“By what?” Peter asks. He has several oddly curved pebbles in his hands, all coated in sand. He's twirling a few between his fingers, a nervous tic, perhaps, but Harry can only find it in himself to be amused by Peter's show of dexterity.

“By a briefcase full of junk,” Harry answers back. Peter looks at Harry and he's smiling, one side of his mouth curled upwards and his eyes hooded against the glare of the sun reflecting across the water's surface. Harry re-adjusts his sunglasses, and turns his back against the light, turns his body to face Peter.

“I wouldn't call it junk Harry. That’s,” Peter swallows, and throws a few pebbles up into the air before catching them. “That’s my dad’s stuff.” He looks over at Harry, but he can’t see those watery blue eyes from behind the sunglasses.

“So? It’s not like you ever met the guy.” Harry’s smiling, and his adam’s apple bobs up and down with the words. Peter turns his body away from Harry, and his fingers clutch tighter around the rocks. Some of the sharp edges dig into his skin, pinching him.

“Peter.” Harry says, his voice clear and crisp like the water in the river. “Since when have either of us known our fathers well enough to care? It’s not like you actually know anything about all that junk, anyway.”

Peter opens his mouth once and then closes it, and he instead draws his arm back and chucks the rocks. Some of them make it to the river's edge, but the majority of them do not.

 


	7. Chapter 7

“Seriously Pete,” Harry says, throwing the manilla folder onto his desk. From where Peter is he can't see Harry move to get up, but he hears the scrape of chair against hardwood flooring. Peter swivels around to look at Harry, from the other side of the kitchen's island, holding onto a commemorative Oscorp coffee cup. He puts the mug down and rubs the back of his neck, giving Harry an unapologetic smile.

He keeps his other hand behind his back, hiding the Captain America cup he's just found in the far recesses of the cupboards. There's a thin film of dust on the cap, and what Peter wouldn't give to have a picture of Harry holding it. For purely innocent reasons of course, and not to have photographic blackmail of the Oscorp heir holding a sippy cup.

From this angle Peter can see that Harry hasn't quite left his desk yet, and his hands are firmly planted on the glass table top. “Do you ever stay still?” Peter doesn't even bother verbally answer Harry, just shrugs his shoulders.

There's the crinkle of papers as Harry absentmindedly thumbs them, countless requisition forms and budget requests strewn across his desk, and Peter knows an Osborn smile when he sees one. Even with luridly dark bags under his eyes, its hard for Harry to look sufficiently intimidating, let alone genuinely annoyed at Peter's antics. Peter unrepentantly shrugs his shoulders again, puts up his hands in an act of quasi-sincerity and apology, and turns back around to continue his snooping.

“I swear, it's like I have to tie you up or something, just to keep you still,” Harry says with a sigh. He sits back down with a truly dignified fwump before he turns his attention back to Peter. Harry looks up in time to see Peter's hands freeze, from where they had been putting the sippy cup away and opening another drawer.

“Only if,” Peter says, almost immediately after Harry had suggested it, “you're into that.” He doesn't turn around from where he's still looking at the back of an empty cupboard, and he can hear Harry make some sort of humming noise. His back feels oddly exposed under Harry’s, and Peter’s not even sure why he blurted that out loud. it’s not like they’re… He can only hope that Harry takes it as a joke and moves on, and in the blessed silence Peter thinks that he’s gotten away with his flub, to be pushed back into the drawer and forgotten like the Captain America mug.

“I'll keep that in mind,” Harry says, after some time. By now Peter’s already made himself a cup of coffee, and it takes him several minutes to know what Harry’s talking about. He doesn’t acknowledge Harry’s comment.   


End file.
